


Circumventing the two-body problem, a case study.

by Sotano



Series: Early Comics Canon [2]
Category: X-Men (Comicverse), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-28
Updated: 2021-01-22
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:08:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28386030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sotano/pseuds/Sotano
Summary: The Two-Body Problem refers to the no-win scenario among couples, particularly in academia, in which both partners are pursuing careers. Because of the necessity of distance between academic institutions, the outcomes are that the relationship will falter, or that one or the other will give up pursuing their career in order to maintain the relationship. The creators of the two-body problem, however, clearly weren't mutants. They neglected to think of the astral plane.Or, Charles and Erik finally start "communicating" again during the early days of the X-Men, and they're either excellent at it or terrible.
Relationships: Erik Lehnsherr/Charles Xavier
Series: Early Comics Canon [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2010022
Comments: 9
Kudos: 35





	1. Long Distance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Towards the beginning of their newly renegotiated relationship, which I usually base on X-Men: Season One rather than the original comics, but we're talking somewhere between X-Men #4 and #8. I reference 4 and use Magneto's hideout from Season One.

The Professor's study was Jean's favorite place in the world. It probably said something, that she actually _enjoyed_ being called to the principal's office, but she couldn't be blamed for the way the space felt. As the newest X-Man, she'd spent quite a lot of time in here before warming to the others, and Charles always seemed happy to host her with a tray of cookies and a pot of tea preternaturally at the ready.

Charles kept tall windows all along the walls, always sun-facing, with thick green velvet curtains drawn back. His giant desk was--walnut? Jean was fairly sure. Dark and grand and busy with papers and books. One whole wall was bookshelves interrupted only by a charming fireplace and a little mantle with photographs of all his students. He kept a little coffee table and a couch to that side as well, angled so that parents and waiting children could perfectly see the sunbeams coming in through the window. On the coffee table they kept a couple brochures of the school, a coloring book and pencils, and usually balanced at the very corner was whatever Charles had picked out to make his students read.

The walls were a dark green, where they could be seen, and there was a small but warm yellow painting opposite the fireplace wall. Charles said it was a replication of a favorite Turner piece: an angel standing in the sun. To Jean it occasionally looked like the angel was engulfed in the sun, instead, flaming and brilliant, but her posture was so benign it never felt frightening, only a little sad. She used to stare at it occasionally, let its clouds brighten in the dark room.

At night, though, the room seemed much darker, lit by the reading lamp at Charles' desk and the antique green-and-brass lamp by the coffee table. The fireplace was unlit. Jean took all this in before letting her eyes come to rest on Charles' figure. This was the first time she'd ever seen him slouched or slumped, to one side as he rested his head on his knuckles. In the other hand he absently twirled a glass of scotch, and his eyes were focused squarely on the framed photograph propped up at the end of the desk. It was a photo of a younger Charles with two friends Jean had never met, but Charles obviously cherished the image, because she'd never seen it moved from its place on his desk. Never, that was, until now, as Charles seemed to make a decision in himself. He snapped the photograph down against the desk with a short movement and drank again.

"Professor?" Jean asked, though Charles' gaze was already turning to her.  
"Hello, child," Charles said softly. "It's late. Shouldn't you be in bed?"  
"Shouldn't you?" she shot back.  
"It's a fair point," Charles mused. "I suppose you've got me there. Would you like anything to drink, while you're up?"  
Jean opened her mouth, and Charles pre-empted her.  
"Besides Scotch, I mean," he said.  
"Foiled again," Jean said, and Charles laughed a little. She sat down in the chair opposite his desk.

"Are you all right?" she asked, searching his face. The light threw heavy shadows against him, but it was clear this wasn't the only night this week he'd lost sleep.  
"Perfectly fine, Jean," Charles said. "Though I'm touched by your concern."

Jean ignored Charles, who for a moment managed to sound as though he really was all right. The Professor didn't like his personal life to escape the bounds of his head. He didn't, sometimes, like to _have_ a personal life, outside of the school. Charles looked a little haggard, tie a little less than perfect, top button undone, and if Jean didn't know perfectly well that Charles was avoiding the use of his powers, and that Charles _never_ let his personal appearance change, she might not have known to be worried. But people who were _perfectly fine_ didn't stay up at night for fear of sleeping and entering the astral plane. The only question was--why? She narrowed her eyes.

"Is this about the fight we had with Magneto?"  
Charles looked at her. "I'd be impressed with your powers progressing if I thought you'd taken that from my mind, so I'll have to instead be impressed by your power of deduction."  
"He was... intense," she said cautiously.  
"Yes," Charles agreed. "That is certainly one way of describing him."  
"Who is he, really?"  
"Well," Charles sighed, "that depends on who you ask. I think many mutants find Magneto to be an inspiring leader. To the United States government, he's a wanted criminal. I knew him very well a long time ago, but I'm afraid I'm no longer qualified to answer that question."

"You grew apart?"

Charles' face made a slightly exasperated expression.  
"Friends fight, sometimes, and sometimes when those arguments cannot be resolved, the friendship ends instead."  
Jean mulled the idea over in her mind. She tried to imagine being where the Professor was, and one of the other X-Men being on the news, blowing things up. "I don't know. I don't think I could stop being friends with the boys, just over an argument."  
"I'm very glad to hear that, Jean," Charles said, and it sounded warm and genuine. "But I do believe you're stalling. It's very late, and a school day tomorrow."

She regarded her Professor again. Charles was a good man. It was hard to think of him as a man at all, in some senses, and Jean realized with a start that if she had seen one of her friends behaving the same way, she'd have a word for it. Not simply sad but lonely, like Hank or even Warren got, though he hated his family.

"You're not giving up, though," Jean said carefully. "Right? You're not just going to stop talking, just because you're angry with each other."

Jean thought of Scott, when he was in a bad mood, and didn't want to have friends. The only way to get by was to give him some space, and occasionally drop a line, see how he was feeling. After a while, Scott would usually come around.

"I don't know that I can give up," Charles said, and his voice sounded a little weary. "And therein lies the problem. But I'll put some more serious thought into what to do about him in the morning. Nothing--"  
"-- _ever seems as bad in the daylight_ ," Jean quoted, and then smiled beatifically. "Yes, I know."

\-------------------------------------------

A few weeks later, Charles was asleep, tapping his foot impatiently in the astral plane while Erik grandstanded. He'd mistakenly allowed Erik to set the scene, stepping into Erik's dream. They stood in a ruined castle, much like the one Charles' children had fought Erik in last week.  
"Charles," he said richly. "Are you enjoying the view from the sidelines? Revolution is not a spectator sport, as they say."

"Cut the melodrama," Charles said, uncharacteristically short. "I've not seen you in months, I don't want to talk to Magneto the Great Mutant Proselytizer."  
"If it's anyone's fault it's yours, for ever introducing me to TH White," Erik replied, dropping a bit of the grandiosity with a shrug. The castle faded away and Charles took the opportunity to put them in his study, with the faint hope that it might give him a territorial advantage. Erik looked around with a poorly concealed interest, and Charles banished all of the furnishings on his desk, so that Erik couldn't take advantage of any notes, or the knowledge that Charles still had the damned photograph.  
"You're in a fucking purple cape," Charles said, drawing Erik's attention back. "Start taking responsibility for your own actions."  
"You didn't recognize the red cap as another of your literary influences?"

Charles was trying not to be amused. He was far from amused, really, he was furious, but Erik was so good at his little sidetracks. Sometimes Charles was self-aware enough to recognize that when they'd been together in Haifa all those years ago this Magneto was always lurking beneath his beloved Erik, and whenever Charles came close to teasing it out, Erik would say something clever and the clock would reset on their very doomed relationship.  
"You're admitting to becoming a caricature?" Charles shot back instead of expressing any of it.  
This was a holding pattern, and it was holding back a dam. Charles honestly didn't know what would happen when the floodgates burst, and he was oddly grateful to Erik for keeping the ball in play.  
"Said the pot to the kettle," Erik teased.

"Childish."

"Arrogant."

"Egomaniac."

"Ditto, Charles," Erik replied. "Or was there something else the X in X-Men stands for?"

"The kids have decided it stands for extra power, actually," Charles said mildly.  
"God, and you call yourself a schoolteacher."  
"Personally, I'd meant for it to be about the X-gene."  
"Oh, of course, and _I'm_ the supremacist."

This wasn't a conversation, it was a fucking tennis match. Charles sighed heavily, rubbing his temples, trying to delay the inevitable, frustrated beyond belief.

"Since you're the one trying for world domination," he said, wearily, "yes. You're the fucking supremacist, Erik."  
Magneto rolled his eyes, just as frustrated and just as close to snapping. He paced, when he was anxious. He strode now, even though he was keeping his face a false-humorous veneer. There wasn't much ground for him to cover here, and before he started resembling a tiger in a too-small cage, he stopped himself at the fireplace and looked at the photos of the children on the mantle.

Charles watched him with a wary eye. This was the man he'd have done anything for, this was the man who kept near constant company with him for the easiest, happiest part of Charles' life, whose shock-white hair and Michelangelo-esque figure stalked his dreams. He looked--good; Charles had the concerning but absolute realization that Erik would always look good to him; but he felt strange. His mental presence was strained, and it wasn't just by a physical distance but an emotional one.

"You know your children would be safer if you just got out of my way. They'd be safer in the thing I want to build than the thing you are attempting to conjure up out of a children's picture book."

"Because Utopia is such a realistic goal," Charles batted back.

"More realistic than coexistence."

Charles eyed him, looked away, sipped at a drink he invented. "I hate that you mean that."

"You love them," Erik said. "I can see it all over your face. Hell, I can see it on their faces. The love of Charles Xavier is practically stamped on their foreheads, and it's the only thing that stops me from--"  
"--Bullshit. You'd have swatted them down like flies if they were weak. The only thing stopping you from hurting them is the simple fact that they are so much better than either of us. And I already told you to cut the melodrama."

Erik sat across from him, very serious, trying to make Charles understand, and it was almost annoying enough to break the veneer of verbal sparring, turn it all into something real and poisonous.

"I don't want to hurt mutants. Every mutant life is precious. You need to know that."

"I have met a great deal of mutants, Erik," Charles said, drinking again. "And the sordid truth is that we are just like everyone else. We are weak, extraordinary, sublime, and horrible in equal measure to any other group, and while we deserve a place in this world that we are not receiving, so does everyone else. There is no divinity in suffering, nor in being different, there is just us and what we make of ourselves and what the world makes of us."

"What happened to you while I was gone?" Erik asked, peering closer. "There's a bitterness to your tone, and your--are we ever going to talk about your legs? Who--"

"--It doesn't matter, Erik! It doesn't _matter_. I've been inside the heads of half this stupid bloody continent and we're all just people inside, so what fucking difference does it make?"

"The difference is that they're going to slaughter us, and we've been given genetic gifts for which we bear a responsibility. We are the _future_ , Charles, and they want to destroy that. Their own fucking _evolution_. In some perverse mass filicide. The sons being made to pay for the genes of the father. The literal murder of progress. How can you not understand the magnitude of that, when you knew better and earlier than any of us that we were a new species?"

"I grasp the extent of the folly of mankind, Erik, I just don't think mutants are an exception to that rule. If you're telling me it's one genocide or the other, I can tell you that sounds like an excellent way to end up with a genocide."

"Don't you dare--"

"--What? Reproach you for wanting to exterminate a race? Am I supposed to just lie back and let you, because it would be easier? Because it would be more comfortable for me, to live in whatever utopia you'd create atop the sea of bones?"

"I wouldn't kill them! I wouldn't--I'd just _stop_ them. I just need the proper leverage."

"You wouldn't kill them but you wouldn't mind, either. You'd stop just short of a genocide, perhaps? Or find very good reasons. What was it that Stalin said? The undesirable classes don't simply liquidate themselves."

"Fuck you, Charles, I'm one of his undesirable classes."

"Well, in that case. The world owes you one, hm? A bit of quid pro quo."

"You don't mean that. You'd _never_ \--"

"--Then tell me _you_ didn't mean it," Charles shot back. "Tell me you take it all back. Please, God, tell me I fucking misheard you when you said you'd enslave them."

Erik looked thunderstruck, but Charles probably had the exact same look on his face.

"I've seen horrible things, here, Charles," Erik said. "We're living on a knife's edge. Mutants fall through the cracks so easily. In the city they congregate in the sewers like rats. We. Are going. To die. This is not a game to me."

"Nor to me," Charles said. "On that, we can be absolutely agreed. Now look me in the eyes and tell me what you meant."

"You know me," Erik said, and it was almost a plea. "You know why I would--don't make me give voice to it."

"You nearly got Scott killed. You _very_ nearly got _me_ killed. I need to hear you say the words."

The unspoken qualifier: I need to hear you say them, _so that I can justify this_. So that Charles could sit here across from Erik and listen to him and feel as deeply for him as he did when they were together, and not feel like a monster for it. If Erik didn't show some sign of remorse here, if he didn't step back, Charles would walk away. This was a line he couldn't cross, he'd found one buried under the hundreds of thousands of lines he'd allowed Erik to trample over since he'd first heard rumors of _Magneto_. But Erik looked a little pained, a little angry, and that little voice in Charles' head said this was not easy for him, either.

"What do you want me to say, Charles? That I still choke on the panic you couldn't cure me of?"

"Why does everyone have it in their heads that I'm out to fix everyone? I wanted--I _want_ \--the best for you, and I hoped if I explained my own position on the matter, you might find that enough of you agreed with me, but I have never tried to do anything but accept you as you are."

They sat across from each other and watched with the same nervous preciseness. Nothing would get by either, and Charles exhaled when he noted a certain softening in Erik's expression.

"Which, of course, you couldn't quite manage."

"It was a tall order," Charles said, but with no real anger behind it. "Say it."

"I didn't mean what I said, the last time we met," Erik said, level. His steel eyes didn't waver, his brow remained firm. "I don't mean it, rather. But sometimes, Charles, I swear it's hard not to. I can be very cruel, Charles. You of all people should know that."  
"Think all the vile thoughts you'd like," Charles said. "Everyone always is. But don't act on them. There's not much I can threaten you with, but I will not do this with someone who believes in those things."

Erik came closer. A kind of malice had re-entered his expression, but it wasn't alone. It was tempered by heat, and the faintest beginnings of humor. "And what is it that you're doing with me? What, precisely, are you threatening to withhold?"  
"The pleasure of my company," Charles said simply, to which Erik huffed a laugh. "A few good conversations, every here and there. Someone on this earth who isn't an enemy to you, and is willing to try to understand you."  
"I have sycophants, you know," Erik said. "I've no need of someone to patronize me."  
"I think that's exactly what you're in need of," Charles said. "Someone to keep you grounded."  
"Or someone to put me in the ground."  
"Don't be morbid, Erik."  
"Someone to grind against, then?"

"Christ, I regret ever teaching you English," Charles said.  
"I already knew English," Erik demurred. "I just didn't know the bigger words. Or your pathetic excuse for grammar."  
It was funny. It was almost funny. They'd found an avenue to avoid whatever meltdown would occur when the dam burst. The first time Erik had come to him like this; Charles hesitated to call it _romantically_ , but that was the vocabulary available; it had been deadly serious. And as such, faintly tragic. But they soon realized it was a useful tactic to stave off the inevitable separation, and neither were prepared to do that. As quickly as they were spiralling towards a fight, Erik directed them a step quicker towards something else entirely, with the childish logic that it was very difficult to argue seriously enough to break a friendship if one was preoccupied with trying to get off.

Erik was leaning in, all Charles had to do was take the sidetrack, or cut their connection. Which would be more telling?

Charles feigned bravado, a flippancy he knew neither of them felt, and kissed Erik first. He took Erik by the back of his head, wrenched his eyes closed and kissed with a startlingly furious expression. It wasn't that there was any doubt Erik would return it, he did with a faintly desperate noise that should have been much more gratifying. It was that this was all so profoundly unreal. He didn't even know where Erik _was_ ; he didn't know if Erik really looked this unchanged or if it was a figment of Charles' imagination writ large on the astral plane. He only barely had Erik's word that he wasn't a complete monster. He didn't know how Erik felt about--this, them. Charles broke away first, pulling Erik away from him with a fistful of white hair.

They looked at each other frankly for a moment.

Erik's gaze was searching, his white eyelashes a little lower than they might be. Then the barest flash of a satisfied smile and Erik's lips were on his again; tongue in his mouth not a second later.

Oh, Charles thought. Erik had figured it out first: it doesn't matter. They'd both, apparently, take whatever little they could get of each other. Their surroundings melted to a vague bed that could have been Charles' current one or Erik's, or one from Haifa. Charles let Erik push him back insistently, let him insinuate a thigh between his legs and two arms at either sides of him as he laid down. He reached up for Erik's suit first, and it was frustratingly button-bereft. Oh, God, it was just a metal mesh, wasn't it? Erik probably put it on and took it off with his powers, the pretentious twat.  
Erik took his wrists and pulled them into the iron grip of one hand, holding them above Charles' head.  
"Christ, are you really--"  
"--I can do this more permanently," Erik warned, gesturing at Charles' struggling arms.  
"Not here, you can't," Charles reminded him. "Not while I'm the telepath."  
"You're saying you don't want it? Not a little?" Magneto asked, only mostly teasing.  
Charles eyed him in lieu of a verbal response; face framed by his elbows; but that was a mistake, judging by Erik's wolfish smile.  
"You don't want to pretend you're not in control? You don't want the paper-thin veneer of plausible deniability?"

"You just want to pretend you're _in_ control," Charles countered.

"Yes-s," Erik said. "God, I want to control you. I want that power of yours at my beck and call, I want you under me so badly I can taste it. Can you honestly say you don't think the same about me?"  
"I don't," Charles insisted.  
"Never, Charles?" Erik asked, musical and charming. "Can't imagine the appeal?"  
Charles imagined Erik, kneeling in front of him, repentant. He imagined it all the time, actually. It was at least _comparable_.  
"In that case," Erik said, pretending to take his silence for no, even as Charles was so obviously, pathetically hard. "Indulge me."  
Metal conjured itself and wrapped around Charles' wrists, vine-like, and Charles could have stopped them, certainly, but Erik was right. The false deniability was worth its weight in any metal Erik could come up with. The pretense that their horrifically ill-advised return was somehow beyond his control, that he could only let it happen.  
And Erik's hands were touching him now, with an abandon that suggested Erik enjoyed the pretense as well. Liked the added assurance that Charles wasn't going anywhere, even if in reality Charles could just as easily sever their connection now as he could two minutes ago. Magneto had a look somehow both reverent and contemptuous. He hiked Charles' leg up, shifting their bodies almost painfully together.

Charles' hands were useless to him, and his arms were stuck over his head now that the cuffs had connected to something behind them, but he could still sit up, and he did with a fluid curl of his stomach. He kissed Erik, who was apparently charmed enough by it to momentarily forget that he wanted Charles to sit still and let Erik act out his grandiose control fantasy. Like clockwork, Charles felt fingers dig into his thighs bruisingly. It was a sensation his powers had to make up; one his physical body couldn't feel; but familiar enough that it wasn't conscious work. He felt the kiss break.

When Erik leaned up, he was scowling. Charles laughed, a little out of breath.  
"Why did you have to take that blast?" he said, and Charles' bewilderment must have been obvious. "I fucking planted a bomb behind a door, you utter fool. I wasn't expecting you to leap in front of it, for God's sake, it was at the top of a flight of stairs. It wouldn't have seriously harmed a healthy young man, but you're about one third of those things."  
"Erik, I'm not going to let you put my students out of commission. Stop trying to."  
"How else am I supposed to slow them down?"  
"Good question," Charles said. "Well, if it's this frustrating, you could always give up."  
Magneto positively growled in annoyance, kissing Charles furiously back onto the bed. The chains constricted painfully, pulsing against his wrists like a boa constrictor.

"I should be able to walk away," Charles said as the kiss broke. Apparently Erik's case of non-sequitur was contagious. "People walk away all the time, for much lesser reasons than what's between us."  
"You can't," Magneto said. "I can't."  
Charles tried to be humorous, to be light, something about TH White and the obvious fraternity he and Erik shared in grand statements and the _vice anglais_ , but what did one say to that, really? When Erik was looking at him like a tragic hero stepped out of a Greek epic? Charles wanted to touch his face, even though it wasn't real, and he was prevented from doing so by the metal cuffs, even though they weren't real.

"Erik," Charles said instead.  
"Come and see me," Erik said. "In person. In New York."  
He was going to refuse, but what came out of his mouth instead was: "Yes."  
"It's been so long," Erik continued, and the sentiment echoed through the astral plane as he ground their bodies together. "I want to--"  
He cut himself off with a groan. Was it a bad sign that the fantasy of seeing each other was so appealing? The real world had no exit button. Charles would have to trust that Erik wouldn't hurt him, when all the evidence was to the contrary. The cuffs at his wrist had thinned, and dug painfully into his skin. There would be no marks on his waking body, but he'd feel the distant, dull ache. Erik looked to him for permission before fucking him, and Charles felt the wrenching frustration that this was not his body but nodded all the same.

This was a memorized feeling; Erik above him, pressing in desperately, one hand guiding his own cock and the other holding Charles where he wanted him. It might just as easily have been a dream, without Erik's real mind a participant, and it all felt so--dissociative. Masturbatory. Impersonal. And then Erik's perfection flickered. He let out a short breath, holding the back of Charles' neck, eyes trained on his own progress. "Charles," he breathed, sounding disbelieving, oddly vulnerable, when Charles was the one tied down.

And, really, Charles' mind couldn't have supplied that.

\-------------------------------------------

A few weeks after that, Charles was in his wheelchair, in a large, empty building in New York City, having been let in by Scarlet Witch, staring straight at Erik Magnus Lehnsherr, also known as Magneto, as the great mutant terrorist flippantly offered him a drink that they both so obviously needed. He had a chess set out, and he really did look as unchanged as the astral plane imagined him to be, but the act of physical contact when Erik passed him his drink was unmistakably, dangerously real.


	2. Sentinels and Blackbirds

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Takes place sometime in the late Uncanny X-Men #50s.

Charles was editing a speech. It was one of his pet hobbies. The _fuck all of you, I'm a mutant_ speech. He toyed with it, more than anything. It wouldn't see the light of day, not for a while at least. Maybe not ever, he thought, looking at his roster of students. So many of them needed the deniability his cover could provide. It still felt like cowardice, the same sort as that other one.

All these interlacing identities, all this cognitive space taken up by lying. If he weren't the world's foremost telepath, he'd need a spreadsheet. The first question he asked, entering any conversation; somewhere deep, profoundly back in his head: _who am I, as far as you know_?

It was dark in his study, save for the fire and his desk light, and his pen scratched away only to stop intermittently. Self-indulgence, he supposed, but then, it was unlikely he'd have time for it again soon. A free Saturday evening, and his brain honestly needed the space to decompress. Other people dreamed to process the events of the day; Charles Xavier had no such luxuries, and his dreams were often difficult work too. He sighed, leaning back as the fire snagged on sap in the wood, a sound like the tiniest firework. Other than that, blissful silence. It was a good speech, certainly better than the bit he'd managed at the Central Park rally a few weeks ago. What had Magneto said? _Positivist kumbaya bullshit_. Not entirely without reason, but Charles was beginning to be taken seriously as an expert on the topic and he needed to be careful about where he positioned himself, for the sake of his children.

And besides, Erik's grandstanding at the hostage UN was significantly worse. He took up the papers, nestled them in his lap, and maneuvered the chair over to the fire, tossing them in with a flick of the wrist.

Returning to his desk he picked out a book from the stack and it happened to rather unfortunately be Proust, and Charles put it back before it could remind him of Erik, and the next was Zola, and he did the same, and it was two more books down the line when he remembered he'd cut a nonsensically broad swathe of French literature on his desk for Jean, and they were all going to fucking remind him of Erik.

And, now that he was thinking of Erik, he figured he was allowed a drink stronger than the cooling tea at his right hand side. The tumbler of Scotch on the mantle looked appealing, but it was summer, and even though it was late he talked himself into a G&T.

Just as he was pouring, the image came unbidden into his mind. Erik, being hotly pursued by a Sentinel. One of those new anti-Erik-Fucking-Lehnsherr models with the plastic, polymer, whatever. He looked a bit worse for wear, which probably meant that it was real.  
"Erik," Charles said aloud. "I'm not sure if I called or you did."

The telepathic signal was weak as hell, and Charles wasn't about to go down to Cerebro to get a signal boost, so he let most of it fall by the wayside, and focused on Erik's voice.

"I'm a bit busy, Charles," Erik said. His voice sounded exerted, like he was hauling something.

"I could see that," Charles agreed. "For about a second. You're just audio now. What'd you steal?"  
The connection went silent for a moment, and Charles could imagine Erik's smile.  
"They call that profiling, in the civil rights circles you so love to mix."  
Charles hummed mildly. Erik's voice came over crackly like it was through a bad phone line, static-laden and gritty and very apropos.  
"And yet you're not hanging up," Charles said.  
"I'm waiting for you to ask me what I'm wearing," Erik muttered, distracted. Through their connection came the rocking quake of an explosion. Charles could picture Erik ducking and weaving through the night sky.

"I'm sure I can guess: two thirds of a costume and--shall we say a quart of your own blood?"

A dark huff of a laugh.  
"Wildly overcautious as usual," Erik said. "It's less than half the quart. And--well, you're not wrong about the uniform, actually."  
"Where are you?"  
Another pause. "You can't tell?"

"You're wearing the helmet. It's--difficult. You're on the East Coast, I assume? Washington? Maybe--"  
"--Let's cut the investigation short there, Nancy Drew."  
"What, you think I'll call the cops on you?"  
"Would it be the first time?" Erik shot back.  
"Mm, not the police. We worked with the Avengers--"  
"--you can see how that's _worse_ , though--"  
"--and only when you didn't give me a choice. Do the words clear and present danger mean anything? Besides, I didn't let them have you, either. And it's not like I'd need to resort to police to stop you now, if I wanted to."

"God, you really are terrifying," Erik murmured, like he liked the idea. There was a bit of heat to his voice, now. "I'm closer than you think."

"Erik," Charles warned.

"You know, when you say my name, you think you sound angrier than you do. It's endearing."

"Magneto, then. I'm almost certain I sound angry when I use that one."

A long pause, this time. Charles finished his gin, felt its mild, cool-fire burn, watched the light bounce off the glass. He considered, briefly, rifling through the danger room stats on Bobby Drake he promised himself he'd get through tonight. Something was bothering him, he felt a sense of kinetic potential with that boy, some missing element. But he could feel that Erik was in more trouble than he was admitting. He brought up his console instead, and issued a command to the hangar. He deliberated for a moment, but Charles was used to calling the shots in much more agonizing situations than this, and he was calling this one now.

"There are other people you could call, Charles, if you're feeling lonely. Let me guess, free night, holed up with a bunch of children's essays on Russian literature?"

Charles eyed the stack of books. The Count of Monte Cristo mocked him. "I don't assign summer homework. And I don't make a habit of hitting up exes."  
"Fuck, is it summer holiday already? I was so sure we were still in April."  
"Rough patch with the Brotherhood?"  
"Brotherhood is a strong word for me and my half quart of blood, honestly," Erik said, oddly chipper. "Does this mean I'm not an ex?"

"That depends on what you stole," Charles answered, ready for the question.  
"It wasn't theirs."  
"What, out of curiosity, would you consider legitimate property of the United States?"

Silence crackled out over their connection.

"Fair," Erik said finally. "But this wasn't theirs in a more literal sense."  
Something in Erik's voice sounded a bit untethered, and Charles pushed with his telepathy and found _shockingly_ little resistance.  
"You're about six minutes from passing out," Charles said. "Just as a heads-up."  
"Yeah, well," Erik said, voice straining again, and then he exhaled as if he'd tossed some faraway weight. "Rough patch."  
Charles felt the trigger, pulled it. Now or never, really.  
"The city's too dangerous for you to lie low. Come to the mansion."

Charles knew Erik well, the meter and measure of his thoughts. He could almost see the gears turning. He imagined Erik giving himself a second to be surprised, and then not so surprised, and another second for his first overwhelming instinct to refuse, because the Mutant Master of Magnetism didn't need any goddamned help, and then a few seconds for Erik's next overwhelming instinct to agree, for the wrong reasons, because Charles was essentially telling him the mansion was empty in the middle of the night. Finally he imagined Erik looking down and honestly assessing himself for a moment, before looking back up at the horizon and doing an internal calculation.

"I'm forty minutes out," Erik said, almost apologetic. "Not exactly fit to fly at my top speed."  
"You stole something from the US Government," Charles said. "I think your morality can survive a carjacking."  
"No amount of grand theft auto is going to get me from New York City to Westchester in six minutes, Charles," Erik said, stumbling a little over the words. He had probably more like five now, but best not to press the issue.  
"Well," Charles said, "it's a good thing I sent the blackbird to meet you ten minutes ago."

The fire crackled in a sort of self-satisfied way while Charles imagined Erik was struggling over whether to be annoyed or relieved. Charles poured two glasses of gin, and miles away he felt Erik stumble into the blackbird and go silent, even inside his own head. Saving his energy, to prove Charles' estimate wrong. Sure enough, in fifteen minutes, the blackbird landed in the hangar but Erik had hauled himself out beforehand, and was floating at one of the tall windows of Charles' study. The latch opened with Magneto's power, and Erik stumbled gracelessly into the room, collapsing with a heavy thud on Charles' floor. Charles had to go to the window himself and close it, and draw the curtains for good measure. As he was pulling one curtain down, he looked over his shoulder at the barely stirring Magneto, and looked back at his window.

"You're tracking blood on my carpet," Charles said mildly, not watching.  
Magneto only made a groaning noise, but heaved himself to the side onto the hardwood. The motion pulled him up off his stomach and onto his back, and it gave Charles a much more accurate understanding of his situation.  
"I don't mean to be alarmist," Charles said. "But unless you want to join me in a wheelchair, I think you need to let me take a look at whatever's happened to your leg."  
"You're so cold, Charles," Erik muttered, half-delirious. "Not the word, hm? Cold... under pressure. Mm. Collected. You should be more alarmed."  
Charles wheeled back to his desk, pulled out a first aid kit.

"It's, what do you-- _assez attrayant_..."  
Charles switched to French, warned him almost an instant too late before cleaning out the wound. Erik hissed and bucked and cursed, still in French.  
"N'est-ce pas mieux, cherie?" Charles murmured.  
"Trop bon, trop bon, ton français. Too--fucking polished."  
In other words: his was better than Erik's.  
"You're going to need stitches. Can you get yourself onto the couch?"

The tang of blood sharpened in the air as Erik moved, and his blood-soaked mesh tossed the scent out. As he fell bodily onto the couch, Charles knew he'd have to have it reupholstered. Not, of course, that this was at the forefront of his mind.  
"We need to get some of that suit off," Charles said. "And it's metal mesh."  
"Knew some clothes were coming off," Erik muttered, waving a hand in the air, summoning the drinks Charles had poured them on a platter. The platter shook its way through the air, with the constant unsteady clatter of metal and glass. Erik took his without looking, and put the platter down on the coffee table. If it was supposed to be a display of power, it fell woefully short. Shorter still, when Erik downed his gin and tonic all at once.

"That wasn't water," Charles said.  
"Sorry--did you want me to savor it? I haven't had a drink in--well, I don't know what month it is, but I don't even like gin."  
"I just need to know if you've lost your sense of taste," Charles said. "Since it's a symptom of a heart attack, and you've clearly way over-extended your powers tonight."

"For that," Erik announced, "Ich würde ein Herz haben müssen."

"Less semi-repentant-supervillain act, more taking clothes off," Charles said, and damned if that wasn't a good summation of their interactions over the past few years.  
Erik obliged, and the metal mesh fell away to reveal the planes of Erik's stomach, and the nasty marring on his left leg tucked against the couch. He cleaned them again, more thoroughly, and gave Erik more to drink.

Erik's mind felt hazy, spread thin. Neurons firing in the dark. He pulled a hand through his hair, not realizing it was the bloodied hand, and now the white was matted down in dark patches.

"Do you trust me to sew it up?" Charles asked, and too late he realized how quiet his tone had become, how afraid.  
Erik looked at him, plaintive. Charles tried not to read his thoughts but they were quite loud. _Charles_ , he thought, almost fucking pityingly, _ich will dich. Du brauchst mich immer noch_. Just like that, Charles pulled the mask back up.  
"I don't think you're in any position to say who needs whom," he said, a touch acerbic, "while you're bleeding out on my couch. And I _know_ you're not in any position to do anything about the other bit."

Erik's mouth hung open. "I did not say that out loud."

"No, but you didn't exactly hide it either."  
Erik was silent, only for a moment, as Charles prepared the needle. "Wait, you think I couldn't, like this?" he asked. "Oh, _Charles_."  
Charles just quirked an eyebrow, dabbing the leg wound with a final round of local anesthetic. "If you tried to do any of the things running through your mind right now, it'd end with me having to take you to a hospital."  
"Mm, but I can do them in my head, can't I?"  
"Whatever keeps you from passing out, Erik," Charles said, and pulled the needle through flesh. Erik hardly noticed. For a moment there was just peace, and Erik drank deeply from the bottle of gin, and the fire flared up, tossing light over the both of them.

"You dropped it," Erik said.

"Dropped what?" Charles asked, mostly out of a desire to keep Erik talking.  
"Haven't asked me what I've taken in a while. You love wounded animals too much."  
"You know, I always suspected you were a bit of a masochist," Charles said. "Only a glutton for punishment antagonizes his nurse."  
"Au contraire," Erik muttered. "I know your limits. If you're still talking to me after I held the UN building hostage, I think I can get in a few comments about your ridiculous, Pavlovian altruism before you give up on me."

He spoke with a slow surety, tongue heavy, never quite looking at Charles. It probably took intense concentration. He was piecing _himself_ back together, as much as Charles was.

"That was a very impressive compound sentence from someone I haven't checked for brain damage."  
"Oh, it's damaged," Magneto said, taking another swig from the bottle.

Charles finished sewing, cut the line, dressed the wound up. He was a fair hand at this, he always had been, all the way back to Korea. Of course, it came in just as handy with the X-Men and their neverending parade of minor to grave injuries. This was, now that he was looking at it, something in between. And, of course, no matter how bad anything ever got, Magneto had always endured worse, for longer.

"Stomach, now," Charles said.  
"It's shallow. I can hardly feel it."  
"You can hardly feel it because you've drunk a half bottle of gin. There were painkillers available, you know."  
"You're not supposed to mix them with drink," Erik replied. "And I needed the fucking drink."

He was partially right about the rest of the damage. His shoulder was seared, and there were a few shallow scrapes across his stomach. Charles treated the burns and covered the wounds and wrapped the whole abdomen over a few times with gauze, so that Erik wouldn't go getting any ideas. It brought them very close, though, and Charles' head at one point hovered perhaps an inch over Erik's chest.

"Lower," Erik said, when Charles' hand skated over the gauze on his abdomen, checking for irregularities.  
"Bite me," Charles replied, voice pleasant.  
"Hm, now who's the masochist?"  
Charles pressed his hand down and Erik hissed. "You, still," he said, and took up a rag to clean the rest of the blood off of Erik's hands and leg.

"You're putting it off," Erik accused, waving a cleaned hand in the air. There was still reddish brown around the fingernails. "Eventually you're going to have to look inside my head."  
Charles hummed, pretending to deliberate. "No. We'll stick to more classical methods of diagnosing concussion. How many fingers am I holding up?"  
Erik eyed him, for the first time in a while. The full force of that shockingly intimate steel gaze. He didn't look at the single digit Charles flashed, but his lip quirked in amusement. And then the delirium seemed to take him again, and his eyes shut.  
"Shit," Charles said, realizing he was absolutely going to need to check inside Erik's head for damage. He put a hand to Erik's forehead. It felt only just feverish, too warm but not past a breaking point. He tried to tread carefully, but the second he knocked at the door, so to speak, Erik groaned.

Flashes, flashes of everything. Erik was thinking of Haifa, thinking of other pains, thinking about a sentinel impaled by the metal of a railroad track, somewhere between here and New York. He was thinking about a facility, in which--no, he steered away. He didn't want to know.  
"Du--ah, Charles, God. It still feels so--"  
Now, of course, Charles' head was throbbing as well: he always had this problem with Erik, they tangled too easily.  
"No damage," Charles managed, gripping his own forehead. "But you're going to have a hell of a hangover tomorrow morning."  
"At this point, it's chronic," Erik said, and that revealed nothing good.  
Charles was in Magneto's head, and it was all chaos. Erik was thinking about tonguing the length across Charles' upper lip.  
"Sorry," Erik said, watching Charles' mouth. "Sorry. It's just been a while."

Magneto was strange and dark and gorgeous, quite out of place on Charles' couch; half-undressed and half-dead, paler than usual and yet so wholly, remarkably focused on Charles Xavier. It was like being desired by a brick wall, or a hurricane.  
"You can't lean up," Charles said. "You _definitely_ can't get it up."  
"Says the man who thought I'd be out in six minutes."

Charles couldn't say quite why, and if he ever had to explain it in court, he was in trouble, but he kissed Erik on the mouth. As simple as leaning down. Erik sighed, tilting his head up when Charles pulled away, chased it. But, of course, Charles was right. Leaning up would be painful.  
"You're all talk," Charles said, and it was so soft it almost hurt.  
"You love it," Erik accused, letting his head fall back to rest on the arm of the couch again. "You love pretending like I need you more than you need me. It makes you feel safe."  
"Literally saved your life tonight, but fine," Charles said.

"There's a game you play, you know," Erik said, loopy, either ignoring Charles or obsessed with him. "With others. The game of how much of myself do I reveal. Hasse es. _Hate_ ," he said, with that ability of his to stress every sound in the word, "I hate watching you do it. But you don't do it with me. We play this other game, the game of self-delusion."  
"What is it about the profession of supervillainy that attracts such lyricism?"  
"You pretend you don't need me, because you know I can see that you do."  
"This thing goes two ways."  
Erik nodded, solemn, stretching, and Charles was reminded just how much clothing was missing from the scene. Erik's chest was entirely bare, save the gauze and he was achingly beautiful, even injured.  
"I pretend I just want to fuck you, because I know you can read the rest."

Christ, that was skating too close to it. Too close to Charles' heart, ripped out on a random hilltop in Kenya, as Erik left. Charles had every right to be angry, he felt it somewhere, _you don't get to leave and then say something like that, years later_. But it was secondary to a rush of blood as Erik tugged at his shirt, pulled him in to kiss him again and incredibly met him halfway, propping himself up on one elbow.  
Charles called another shot, pulled them into the astral plane. Erik didn't even break the kiss, so unsurprised as he was by the change of scene.

They were in a bedroom, not a real one, Charles had stolen it from some film or other. He did that occasionally, when he wanted to manufacture distance. Although he supposed it was probably a bit late for that now. And again, in the back of his head: _who the fuck do you think you're fooling, Xavier?_

"I thought you didn't want to be in my head," Magneto said, when he did finally decide to stop.  
"We're not. We're in mine. You'll note the general cleanliness."  
"It doesn't hurt. You're blocking the pain."  
"What, and you want it back? _Masochist_."  
"You know what's masochistic? Letting a terrorist into your head."  
"So I probably shouldn't let him fuck me then," Charles mused.

"No," Erik agreed, standing with ease, pulling Charles up with him. "You shouldn't. You don't even know what I did today."  
"You wouldn't be here if it was something too bad."  
"Why are you so fucking _trusting_?" Erik asked, suddenly, and sounded almost pained.

Charles just shrugged. Honestly? He was tired of trying to piece out what he wanted, what he hoped to gain from their half-relationship. He was in the dark.  
"I don't know," Charles said. "But I'm done fighting it."  
"You're not done fighting me. I still believe--"  
"--Oh, who the fuck cares?" Charles said, and Erik kissed him again. At least, he was pretty sure it was Erik. Magneto had beaten him to it. He shoved, hard, and Charles fell back onto the bed only for Erik to kneel in front of it.  
There were probably very few people on earth who knew that Magneto was good at this. Charles shuddered, wracked with it, as Erik sucked his cock. Erik made very purposeful eye contact, and Charles felt his face heat. The rumbling, humming beginnings of one of his dark laughs vibrated and Charles felt his whole body twitch in response. That was apparently a bridge too far, and Erik pulled off filthily, tonguing the head of Charles' dick with an amused expression.  
"Christ, get on with it," Charles said.  
"You never used to be this impatient," Erik said, kissing his stomach.  
He was so hard he could weep. As usual, Erik wasn't without a point.  
"You never used to take this long."  
"I was ready to go thirty minutes ago," Erik countered, pressing them flush together.  
"You were bleeding out thirty minutes ago."

Charles felt Erik's attraction spike, just a little, felt his dick throb against his hip. "Fuck me, you really are a masochist," he said.  
"It's more of an ego thing," Erik offered, pushing Charles down onto the bed. "You thought I couldn't give it to you, like this. You and I are so much more powerful than we ever get the chance to show."  
Erik was thinking, again, of a sentinel driven through by metal railroad tracks, speared and left to degrade like a carcass, like a calling card. The two railroad tracks formed an X, running through its body, piercing its chest.  
Charles rolled his eyes, but his self-awareness wouldn't save him. Magneto was so _fucking_ gorgeous, and he was angry all over again that the man could get away with all of this self-obsessed, manic bullshit, but he could.

In the morning, Erik limped his way around the kitchen, wearing Charles' clothes, and Charles had half a mind to check him for a hitherto undiscovered healing factor when he tossed a floppy drive across the marble island. Charles looked at him, eyebrow up.  
"It's what I did yesterday," Erik said. "Trust me, you want it. Bad things brewing in Washington. Your children need to be ready, I'm going to lie low for a few months, and I won't be there to clean up your mess."

Charles laughed, a little bitter. "Is that what you think you do?"

"Often enough," Erik said, and his serious tone was sobering. "Or, sometimes. Almost as often as I ruin things."  
"And is there a forwarding address, in case you want a copy of what's on here?"  
Erik grinned. "Too trusting by half, Charles. I made a copy using your computer an hour ago."  
He held up a second drive, and Charles recognized it as one of his own.  
"Oh, good, I've got the original. So when the Feds come calling..."  
Charles waved a hand airily.

"Deny, deny," Erik said, almost singsong, oddly contented sipping his coffee through what must be a ton of pain. Oh, unless he'd already gone through the medicine cabinet too. Magneto wasn't too terribly respectful of private property, these days.

"Any hints?" Charles asked.

"Does the name Larry Trask ring any bells?"

Charles made a face, something between disgust and unease. Erik raised his mug in silent agreement.

"This time they're calling it the Federal Council on Mutant Activities," Erik mused. "Isn't that interesting? Mutant _activities_. As if it's an action, as if it's a _choice_."  
"Now where have I heard that bit of linguistic fuckery before?" Charles asked no one in particular, and Erik again seemed happy to let that answer speak for the both of them. He finished his coffee. All good things had to come to an end. All things.  
"You're off?" Charles asked, happy that his voice affected a mild interest.

Magneto nodded. "Sorry, Charles. I don't want to draw any heat here."  
"No, by all means. The children will be back soon, at any rate."  
"Mm, have fun getting my blood off the carpet."  
"And the couch."  
"Bill me."  
"You still haven't given me a forwarding address," Charles reminded him.

Erik looked out the window. "Yeah, that'll be difficult. Something arctic," he said. Suddenly, he turned back to Charles. "I did it for you. I'm always doing it for you. I know I'm not always in control, but I--" he stopped himself. "I'm not--all there. I'm trying."  
Charles put a hand over his on the kitchen counter, tried to say something through it. _Be patient with me_ , Erik's thoughts begged. And Charles knew he'd wait up, however long it took, for Erik to piece himself together. He left out the window again, and there wasn't really any need, but old habits died hard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Advance apologies for the shitty French and the even shittier German. It's slightly upsetting that the languages I know and the languages they know only overlap twice.
> 
> Also: don't know if it's funnier if the students know or don't know at this point but it'd be crazy if Jean didn't. Still, another Savage Lands arc with a particularly manic Magneto is a few issues later than this, and I can only imagine the interaction:  
> Warren: "Your crazy boyfriend kidnapped me in the Savage Land."  
> Charles, sipping his tea, knowing full damn well he's not talking to Magneto for at least a year over this: "And your father bankrolls the sentinels that blew up the mansion last year. What's your point."


End file.
